Asia Pacific

2021 finished strong, with another SPAC merger with a space-related (albeit not originally a space) company (Tomorrow.io), more fundraising by SpaceX, a few major private rounds, a couple of investments by Virgin Orbit (and hence yet further examples of a de-SPAC’d company deploying part of its cash towards investments) and even a small IPO (Sidus).

The U.S. committed to extend the operations of the International Space Station (ISS) through 2030, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced. The Biden-Harris Administration wants to continue to work with its international partners “to enable continuation of the groundbreaking research being conducted in this unique orbiting laboratory through the rest of this decade”.

In this Space Café Radio – TOP-10 MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS IN SPACE IN 2021, contributing editor Dr. Emma Gatti talks about her thoughts on the previous year. 2021 has been an intense year for the Space sector. From breakthrough scientific achievements to thorny diplomatic accidents, the industry seems almost to be not keeping pace with itself.

So what DID happen? How do we know what happened? Was it appropriate for China to invoke Article V of the United Nations Outer Space Treaty? What level of oversight should the US have with commercial space activities? What level of transparency is appropriate? These are just a few of the questions prompted by China's 3 December 2021 note verbale to the United Nations.

The recent note verbale on two encounters between the Chinese space station and Starlink satellites has triggered a broader discussion on Space Traffic Management. But what do we actually mean by Space Traffic Management and what do we actually need? For many (including me), Space Traffic Management has a short-term and a long-term dimension.

In this Space Café Radio – our Review 2021 series, SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening spoke with Troy McCann, Entrepreneur, Space engineer, advisor, investor and founder and CEO of Moonshot Space in Sydney about his space highlights in 2021, what's up in Australia and what to watch out for the upcoming year in space.

This Space Café WebTalk will feature Prof Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla, Chair of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), in conversation with Torsten Kriening, publisher of SpaceWatch.Global. Climate change demands our action – record from space, analyze, act

In this Space Café Radio – our Review 2021 series, SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening spoke with Dr Malcolm Davis, Senior Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra about military space in 2021 in Australia and globally and what to watch out for the upcoming year. 

Satellites from SpaceX’s Starlink Internet Services had two "close encounters" with the Chinese space station in July and October, according to a document submitted by China to the UN's space agency. The China Space Station had to take “preventive collision avoidance control” measures to avoid colliding with the satellites.

Two Shenzhou-13 astronauts conducted a six-hour spacewalk on Sunday to install equipment outside Tiangong space station’s Tianhe module, the China Manned Space Agency reported. This was the fourth spacewalk conducted since the launch of the Tianhe core module in April this year.